I can’t watch, it just makes me want to club someone…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/20/canada-baby-seals-killed_n_7087092.html
WARNING: This post contains graphic content that may upset some readers.
The Canadian government in early March announced this year’s quota for its annual, and highly controversial, seal hunt. The allocation for 2015? 468,000 harp, hooded and grey seals.
In an effort to minimize inhumane treatment, the Canadian government mandates that seals can only be killed using a high-powered rifle or shotgun, a club or a hunting tool called a hakapik. Yet with the hunt in full swing, last week Humane Society International released shocking footage of baby seals being shot, clubbed and dragged aboard hunting vessels — footage that, the group alleges, shows the hunt is anything but humane
Rebecca Aldworth, executive director of HSI’s Canada chapter, told The Huffington Post that despite the legal protections, “what happens to these baby seals is some of the worst suffering I’ve ever witnessed.” She spent last week in a helicopter off the northeast coast of Newfoundland getting a firsthand look at the seal hunt — her 17th year doing so.
“Ever year we go out there, we see the same kind of cruelty,” Aldworth said. “The seal is moving on the ice, the ice is moving on the ocean and the boat is rocking on the waves, so you often see a seal that’s just wounded because it’s incredibly difficult to make that shot.”
The hunt takes place in northeastern Canada between November and June, with the majority of the seal hunting happening in March and April. The animals are killed mainly for their furs, and young harp seals tend to be in the highest demand because they have the most valuable pelts.
The Canadian government maintains that safeguards are in place to ensure animals are killed quickly and humanely. When asked about the scientific rationale for the hunt, a spokesperson for the country’s Fisheries and Oceans Portfolio directed HuffPost to an online FAQ page about the seal hunt.
The huge annual quota is all the more surprising given that the number of seals harvested each year has fallen dramatically over the past decade, thanks to a shrinking market. Around 94,000 animals were hunted in 2013, down from about 366,000 in 2004. Harp seal populations in Canada are nearly three times what they were in the 1970s, currently numbering close to 7.3 million animals.
The Canadian Sealers Association recently announced that it will scale back operations in light of the difficult financial situation caused by a constricted commercial market. Carino, the top buyer of sealskins in Canada, said it wouldn’t be purchasing any pelts this year because it already has a stockpile that didn’t sell in 2014.
The lower demand is partially a result of growing international concern for animal welfare. The entirety of the European Union banned the trade in 2009 due to worries about the inhumane nature of seal hunts in Canada, Greenland, Namibia and other countries. Canada appealed the decision to the World Trade Organization, but the agency upheld the EU ban in 2014, noting it was “necessary to protect public morals” related to animal rights.
In the U.S., trade in seal products is banned and all species of seal are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.
Captain Paul Watson, founder of the marine wildlife conservation group Sea Shepherd, told HuffPost that while his organization supports the work of HSI, it no longer actively opposes to the hunt due to the “collapse” of the market.
“There simply is no market today,” he said. “Sea Shepherd’s role has been to oppose the sealing ships, and there are no more ships on the water and in the ice killing seals.”
Watson noted that despite the large number of seals designated for hunting through the government’s quota, it’s likely that fewer than 60,000 will be killed this year because of the lack of demand.
Aldworth told HuffPost that HSI is hoping to help broker a deal between the sealers and the Canadian government that would bring about an end to the hunt through a federal buyout of sealing contracts. She said the plan would be similar to the shift that took place when whaling was ended in the country in the 1970s. Parts of Canada now have a burgeoning whale-watching industry.
But for now, her group believes a single seal killed is one too many.
“HSI’s concern is that the seal hunt is inherently inhumane. Because it’s inhumane, it must be shut down,” Aldworth said. “The only progressive thing to do, the only acceptable solution is to shut down the slaughter forever.”
Exposing the Big Game 
I just cannot imagine what kind of people do this – how they can go home at the end of the day, have dinner with the wife and kids after showering the blood off, as if it were another day at the office and not a brutal killing frenzy. Disgusting, evil monsters these people are – and the day will come when seal killing will end. You can’t call it hunting because there is no market anymore, just an outlet for bloodlust subsidized by the Canadian government. *spits*
I did not and cannot watch – but to protect my mind from the brutality accepted, condoned and encouraged by the Canadian government, I take comfort in recalling the Fisheries Minister getting a pie in the face. Tofu of course.
One of the people behind it. Backing the slaughter and profiting from it, as well as the killings in Namibia. Hatem owns 82% of the world seal fur trade, responding to the protests of anti-fur advocates by releasing a line of seal fur clothing entitled “Fok You”.
Same to him!
Hate ’em? You can’t make this stuff up.
Back when Nixon was president I sent my first letter against the seal hunt. It saddens me that all that time has past, and here I still am, writing letters against the seal hunt. Every year I sign petition after petition, and they’re still at it. There are days that I just can’t read your blog posts. Sorry, but it’s true. My heart is so heavy and I see no end in sight for the injustice that goes on in this world. Sorry, but I’m a wee bit pessimistic right now. I just can’t believe that there has been so little change after all these years.
I understand your pessimism–sometimes I can’t read this stuff eitherl
The lower demand is partially a result of growing international concern for animal welfare. The entirety of the European Union banned the trade in 2009 due to worries about the inhumane nature of seal hunts in Canada, Greenland, Namibia and other countries. Canada appealed the decision to the World Trade Organization, but the agency upheld the EU ban in 2014, noting it was “necessary to protect public morals” related to animal rights.
Don’t be pessimistic (I think you are all being realists) – this end of the market is a very big deal, although it has been a long, difficult slog in order to make this progress. It will end eventually.
The Fur Industry will remain so long as people buy into using ‘vermin’ (*vomits*) such as raccoons, foxes and coyotes for fur and ornaments; this slog isn’t over.
The Namibian Government doesn’t consider their seals legally animals (sounds like something from “The Onion” but it’s true), thus they are not protected at all.
That’s hard to believe, but not funny
Just read this and thought I’d share:
Although a large majority of the general public objects to the use of fur and the mistreatment of animals on fur farms, Austria, Croatia, England, Great Britain, Wales, Scotland, Switzerland and Northern Ireland are some of the only places in the world that have outright fur farm bans. Other countries like Italy and New Zealand have partial bans on the trade of fur, delegating standards of care for select species. While we like to think that the U.S. has higher standards for animal welfare, when it comes to the fur industry, our own standards and regulations fall shockingly flat.
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/the-shocking-truth-about-international-animal-welfare-standards-for-fur-farms/
The US? Higher standards for animal welfare? You’re joking, right?
I call this Canada’s shame, one of the anyway. I am continually disgusted with our Government & feel like we are never going to end this nightmare. The people that do this are very ignorant & indifferent to suffering.
This atrocity has been going on and on, and all the graphic images have not served to end it. This is a prime example of how “we the people” could put a stop of a great deal of animal abuse but not participating in it. Every time consumers buy the products of abuse, such as furs, meat, hunting licenses, tickets to circuses, we allow animals to suffer. Stop the demand, and the greedy will not make any money and we would not need so many laws.
I love seals so much and reading this makes me want to start smacking someone in the head and shoot them in the brain for this.